


Raise your Heart (I'll carry it for you)

by thelogicoftaste



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (again), Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF!Stiles, Community Officer!Derek, Daddy!Derek, Domestic, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Hunters Fucking Shit UP, Kid Fic, M/M, Neuroscientist!Stiles, The Happiest., daddy!stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-10 20:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelogicoftaste/pseuds/thelogicoftaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“Evelyn,”</em> Derek warns, insufferably frustrated with his daughter’s ability to be so undeniably annoying; he’s dealt with Alpha packs and steely witch covens, dammit, he refuses to entertain the slightest idea that his final downfall will be his toddler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think you understand how hard it was for me not to name this fic 'Raise some Hale.' 
> 
> Do NOT be fooled by the cutesy fluffiness, there will be angst and it'll come at ya with a vengeance. Heh. But you know me, happy endings and all that jazz. 
> 
> Of course, Teen Wolf does not belong to me (sad as it may be) it belongs to the original creator Jeff Davis, and all the affiliates of MTV, all of whom created this wonderful series - thanks be to you, Ladies and Gents :)
> 
> Hasta Luego, have fun!

-

The problem with having more than one child, Derek has realised, is that there will ever only be one shopping cart when he takes them to the grocery store.

It’s a production getting them out of the car in the first place; with Cam’s sleepy no-effort shuffle, green eyes hazy with sleep and his silk black hair in disarray, and Evie’s riotous peppiness, Derek’s stress levels are already rising and it’s barely noon.

They’ve been out of the house for a little over two hours, leaving Stiles presiding over his spreadsheets and the research papers scattered all over the dining room table.

But now, Derek is standing outside the large sliding doors of the store, he’s holding Evie aloft the shopping cart by her armpits and his face is steadily heating up in embarrassment as his three-year-old’s antics garners him more attention than he appreciates.

She has her fingers tangled in the soft material of Derek’s shirt and her purple-tights clad legs splaying out in every which direction each and every time that he tries to lower her into the child seat.

She’s absolutely refusing to sit down, her dark hair falling loose of her ponytail and her pale green eyes narrowed in defiance.

“ _Evelyn_ ,” Derek warns, insufferably frustrated with his daughter’s ability to be so undeniably annoying; he’s dealt with Alpha packs and steely witch covens,  _dammit_ , he refuses to entertain the slightest idea that his final downfall will be his toddler.

Derek’s outburst draws looks from persons walking past and Derek offers them a pained smile, more a baring of teeth than anything else, before turning back to his daughter and hissing, “Would you just  _sit down_?”  

He once again attempts to lower her down to the red plastic seat attached to the shopping cart and immediately feels a vein throb in his temple when she merely bends her knees and, with her pretty pink patent-leather [mary-janes](http://www.childrensalon.com/girls-pink-patent-mary-jane-bar-shoes-with-buckle.html), springs right back up into the air again.

“I don’t want to,” she declares loftily, folding her arms over where her father’s hands are holding her up.

“Well, you’re going to have to,” Derek retorts, most definitely not acknowledging the fact that his daughter has him regressing into juvenile mimicking.

“Cam doesn’t have to sit there,” she argues and, sighing gruffly, she drops her head back to glare upside down at her brother.

Cameron, sitting serenely in the deep basket of the cart, simply continues to rifle through his stack of  _Yu-Gi-Oh_  cards with decadent reverence. He dismisses Evie entirely with a single quick quirk of a dark eyebrow, looking so reminiscent of Derek that Derek almost has to do a double take.

“Cameron is not you,” Derek says, turning Evie back towards him. “And  _you_ , little miss, will do exactly as you’re told.”

Which is why of course, twenty minutes later, Derek is carefully navigating the aisles of the grocery store with his Evie propped on his shoulders.

Cam is leaning against the inside corner of the cart, holding on to his Nintendo DS, occasionally reading out to Derek the shopping list Stiles had scribbled in the notepad before they left, but mostly ignoring them in favour of doodling.

Evie’s arms and legs are wrapped around Derek’s neck; she’s slowly but surely cutting off his air supply, fingers interlinked tight and solid beneath Derek’s chin. She’s having entirely too much fun for Derek to even care that his daughter’s leisurely choking him to death.

She’s resting her chin on top of Derek’s head, sighing every once in a while as she takes in the view around her.

“Can I have some glasses?” Evie asks.

“No.”

“Plates?”

“No.”

“What about the pointy things?”

Derek sighs, “Knives, Evie?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Can I have the fish?”

“No,” Derek replies once more, steadily turning the cart around the corner and away from the fish counter.

“Curly fries?”

“No.”

Evie hums, long and drawn out, the vibration ripping across Derek’s skin as they move further through the store, “Can I have some pineapple?”

“You don’t even like pineapple,” Derek tells her. He feels her sigh, and sigh  _deeply_. As if  _she_ ’s the one mustering up the patience to deal with him and not the other way around.

They’ve been having this conversation for the past ten minutes, wherein Evie sees something she can name and immediately asks for it, regardless of what it is or if she even  _likes_  it.

“How about some coconut?” she asks next.

Derek stops the cart in front of the oranges, waiting as Cam leans over and places them in the basket beside him; Cam’s reaching for the lemons when Evie speaks again, mouth by Derek’s ear, warm breath gusting into the shell of it as she laughs.

“Coco,” she says. “Nut.”

Cam sits back down, “We need corn starch.”

Derek dutifully begins ambling down the aisle, manoeuvring around an elderly couple massaging mangoes to test for ripeness.

“Daddy,” Evie whines, tugging on Derek’s neck, like that’ll make him turn around, instead it forces an undignified squawk from his throat; Cam smirks, mischievous smile growing only larger when he sees his father’s narrowed eyes on him.

Evie doesn’t even take notice.

“ _Daddy_ ,” she repeats, louder this time. “You din’ get the coconuts.”

“You’re allergic, Eve.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Who says?”

“Pappy.”

Derek sighs, long and hard, he reaches to grab the corn starch from the top shelf and hands it to Cameron. “No, he didn’t.”

Evelyn considers this, pausing for a scant moment as she rubs her chin on the thick hair on Derek’s crown, the heels of her shoes beating gently against Derek’s chest.

“Can I have some muffins?”

-


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here! Have another chapter :)
> 
> If you're new to my work (and you like what you read!) there's some standard self-promotion in the end notes. 
> 
> Cheers! 
> 
> (p.s. Also, I forgot to mention that I'm English, so _that's_ what's up with my weird spelling)

-

By the time that they get outside, Derek has a small migraine burgeoning behind his lids and two very happy children.

He puts Evie down first before reaching in to grab Cameron, who curls his fingers into the pocket of Derek’s jeans as soon as his feet hit the ground.

Derek works on getting all of the canvas grocery bags on hand whilst Evie runs her palms over her white playsuit, fingers smoothing over the decorative beads on the peter-pan collar.

Cam has his entire focus placed on the Nintendo five inches from his face, the hand in the pocket of his father’s jeans being the only thing that stops him from toppling to the ground as they walk towards the car.

Evie is already skipping ahead, turning around every ten steps or so with her hands on her hips and her legs phased apart as she watches them approach.

The car ride home is the furthest thing from quiet, but the laser shoot sounds emanating from Cam’s video game and Evie’s rambunctious warbling to the radio make Derek content nevertheless.

Derek gives the kids the two lightest grocery bags to take inside whilst he locks the car.

Evie leads the way, rushing down the polished dark wood floor of the hall with a stark busyness as she heads towards the kitchen. She pokes her head into the doorway leading from the corridor to the dining room, offering a brisk, _“Pappy, we’re back!”_ before bustling further on into the kitchen.

When Derek walks past, Stiles is furiously scribbling down on one of his notepads; his laptop, open and shoved to the side, casts a glowing tinge to his skin. Stiles has on his reading glasses and his left hand is lifted in the air in the half-forgotten wave he’d offered to Evie ten seconds before.

Derek reaches the kitchen island, placing the bags on the counter, just as Cam is ridding himself of his own.

He closes his Nintendo game and places the console on the counter, before wandering past the open French doors that lead from the kitchen to the dining room, sidling up to where Stiles is still sitting at the table.

Cam drapes himself over Stiles’ side, and Stiles barely pauses in his note-taking, wrapping an arm around his son's body and hauling him up to sit on his knee. Cam leans back against his father’s chest immediately, the back of his head bumping against Stiles’ clavicle.

Stiles fixes his glasses more firmly in place, rubs the tip of his nose and adjusts his stance to better bear the brunt of his son before he pulls his laptop closer, settling a broad hand on Cam’s stomach as he begins to transcribe his notes on to the word document he already has up.

Cam’s hand drops to play with the gold band on Stiles’ ring finger as Derek hoists Evie up on the island counter; she shuffles on her knees to peer into the bags around her, pulling things out and handing them to Derek as she helps him put the groceries away.

She sits on the edge of the counter when she’s finished, self-satisfied and smiling and Derek opens a cream cheese dipper for her before calling over to where Stiles and Cam are sitting, brandishing another opened packet to his son.

“Want one?”

Cameron nods, smiling a little as Derek approaches, “Thanks.”

Derek ruffles a hand through Cam’s hair before walking back over to Evie; her feet knock against the counter as she hums, munching on her breadstick, watching Derek shuffle about the kitchen.

He stands in front of her, taking out her loosened elastic band before he rakes his fingers through the soft strands of her hair to put it back up into a tighter, neater ponytail; feeling the vibrations of her crunch-crunch-crunching through where she’s leaning her forehead on his chest.

When he’s done, Evie merely tucks her side bangs behind her ear and continues eating; over by the dining room, Cam is offering Stiles a breadstick with a heap of cream cheese scooped on the end.

Stiles pauses in his work, looks at the offered breadstick for only a second before he’s taking a bite out of it, following it up with a big, noisy kiss on Cam’s cheek.

“I’m making pasta,” Derek says, loud enough for them all to hear. “If anyone has any objections, you’d better say so now.”

“I have an o’jection,” says Evie.

“No, you don’t,” Derek answers easily.

In the dining room, Stiles is grinning, his chin propped up over Cam’s shoulder.

“Cam and I have no objections, do we?” Stiles says, looking at Cam as he shakes his head. “Get to it, husband.”

Derek can’t help but smile back, dutifully going about making pasta.

Stiles is the last to the kitchen table, as he usually is, hurriedly closing the partition door of the dining room before walking further into the kitchen.

“Smells good,” he says, kissing Derek. He slides into the seat opposite him, tangles their legs together beneath the table and pulls his plate of pasta towards himself. “How was the grocery store?”

“We bought muffins,” Evie says from beside Stiles, through a mouthful of pasta.

“What kind of muffins?”

Evie’s just about to answer when she catches the look on Derek’s face.

Instead, she chews quickly, barely swallows before she’s saying, “The ones with vanilla frosting.”

“Your favourite,” Stiles comments. Evie beams at both him and Derek, nodding vigorously.

If Derek knows one thing about his children, it’s that Cam like _Yu-Gi-Oh_ cards and strawberry ice cream, and Evie likes vanilla frosted cupcakes and winding up her father.

“With pink and purple sugar sprinkles on top,” Evie is saying, curling her fork in the pasta. “I wanted the blue sprinkles too, but they were out of those.”

Stiles makes the appropriate sympathetic noises, rubbing her back as he eats.

“And daddy wouldn’t let me get the coconut sprinkles.”

“That’s because you’re allergic, sweetpea,” Stiles tells her.

Evie pulls a face at Derek, and he can’t help but snort a smug laugh at that.

Stiles smiles too, a little confused, “What’d I miss?”

“Eve told me you said she wasn’t allergic.”

“Evie,” Stiles chastises, hand dunking gently on the top of her head. “What have we said about lying?”

“Only to the people we don’t like,” she grumbles.

“ _Stiles,”_ Derek says, feeling outraged. 

“What?” Stiles grins, sharing a long look with Evie before they dissolve into laughter.

“It’s a perfectly acceptable technique,” he tells Derek. “I’ve been using it for the past three decades, you know this. It’s tried and tested. I’m merely giving my children the fruits of my labour.”

“By teaching them to lie?” Derek asks dryly, eyebrows lifting up in scant disbelief.

Then, in perfect synchronicity his husband and his children chorus, “Only to people we don’t like.”

They all burst into laughter, loud and noisy around the table; Derek rolls his eyes, even if he feels his lips tug upwards in easy humour.

When they’re all pretty much settled, Stiles sighs and turns to his son, “How’s your tooth, baby?”

Cam had discovered a wobbly tooth a few days prior, and it’s been an endless fascination to both him and Stiles, despite the fact that it’s neither Cam’s first, nor his last tooth loss.

“Wobbly,” Cam reports back with a proud grin, tongue poking at the tooth in question to demonstrate.

“Not at the table, boys,” Derek says, barely holding back an eye roll at how Stiles leans towards Cam with child-like enthralment.

“Yeah,” Evie emphasises, her face the picture of smug pomposity. “Not at the table, boys.”

“Sorry,” Stiles says to her, hand pressed to his chest, eyebrows tilted in exaggerated apology. “You’re totally right; whatever the boss-lady says, right, Cam?”

“’S right,” Cam agrees, hiding his grin behind his hand at Stiles’ sly look.

“Did your dad buy you the card you wanted?”

“Yeah,” Cam replies, grinning up at Derek before turning back to Stiles. “It’s a five headed dragon, Pa.”

“A five headed dragon?” Stiles repeats, throwing a surprised glance at Derek’s self-satisfied smile. “That’s pretty rare.”

“ _Super_ rare,” Cam enthuses, taking a deep breath before launching into a detailed explanation of Derek’s earlier battle of wits and haggling with Mrs Daymonte over at the vintage toyshop downtown. 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want some Hot Single Dad Derek Hale being fabulous and wonderful in a 150k then click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/748323/chapters/1395994).  
> If you want some Hot Mechanic Part-Time Get-Away driver Derek Hale being hot and (a little) scary then click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1119804/chapters/2256253).  
> Alternatively,  
> If you want some Stiles Stilinski and the rest of the gang being Flawless Dancing Extraordinaires then click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/869849/chapters/1670254).  
> If you want some Stiles Stilinski being a BAMF Hunter with his siblings Erica and Isaac and their father then click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/831083/chapters/1580054).  
> But,  
> If you want some fluffy happiness (with extra musical-ness and baking!Derek) then click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1070545).  
> If you want some Post-Nemeton, experimental light angst with a hopeful ending (and a sequel to come!) then click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1107363).  
> If you want some Dystopian 'verse, violence, angst and Stiles Stilinski (with some Derek thrown in there too) then click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/787159).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word up!
> 
> Here, have some sexy times! :)

-

That night, Stiles falls into bed when the sky is already lightening by slow, shifting increments.

Derek drowsily wakes up as he hears the sounds of Stiles shuffling around the darkened room, hears Stiles' clothes hitting the floor with a dull thud, the quiet snick of his reading glasses as he places them on his bedside table, the whoosh of air of Stiles falling face first on the mattress.

It’s quiet from then on, Derek can hear only Stiles’ breaths, and when he blinks his eyes open, he can see the stressed lump of Stiles’ shoulders heaving each inhalation.

Derek lifts a hand, smoothing his palm over the expanse of Stiles’ spine, slowly moving up to the nape of his neck and all the way back down to his boxer briefs.

Stiles turns his head, looks at Derek in the dim shadows of the room.

“Can’t sleep?” Derek asks quietly, hand smoothing over Stiles’ back.

“Too wired,” Stiles whispers.

“Do you want me to help with that?”

Stiles nods, sighing, “Yeah.”

But Derek is already moving, carefully dropping his weight on top of Stiles, mouth sliding over his.

The roll of Derek’s hips is almost secondary to the care that he takes whilst kissing Stiles; he bites gently at his lip, slips his tongue into his mouth until Stiles is sighing into his mouth, tension melting off of him.

Stiles slides his fingers into the thickness of Derek’s hair, pulling him down to deepen the kiss.

“I’ve missed you,” Stiles mumbles against his mouth.

“I’ve been right here,” he replies, voice low and steady as his hands sneak underneath Stiles, one palm spreading heat on his belly and the other cupping around the bulge in his briefs.

“And I’ve hardly seen you,” Stiles says, laughing a little breathlessly as he bucks his hips into Derek’s touch. “I’ve missed your hands on me.”

Derek kisses Stiles, deep and warm, filled with sated breaths and tingling lips. He trails his mouth to kiss the curve of Stiles’ shoulders, tracing the constellations of moles on his back with hot, open-mouthed kisses.

He sits up on his knees, sweeping a hand over Stiles’ bare stomach to tilt his hips up; knees phased apart, chest pressed to the mattress and ass in the air.

Derek will never get tired of this, he thinks, of running his hands over Stiles’ body, of tracing the intermittent scars scattered across his skin and the smooth bumps of his moles, of rubbing his fingers through the coarse hair on his chest and beneath his navel.

And he loves, _loves_ the way Stiles sounds; his voice deepening even further into a rugged sigh, teeth biting into kiss-reddened lips with every sinuous moan, eyelashes lowered to the crest of his cheekbones with each uttered gasp.

He’s quieter now than he was years ago, before they had children, when they could fuck whenever and Stiles was _loud_ , an uproarious grin ever present on his face. But Derek doesn’t mind the near-silence now; because it all translates into the way Stiles moves, and Derek lives for the way that Stiles’ hand curls around his thigh to pull him closer, the way that Stiles’ bones shift beneath his skin.

Stiles is rolling his ass back into the bulge in Derek’s pyjamas, they’re both leaking-hard and panting. Derek wraps his hands around Stiles’ hips, crowds him deeper into where the hard line of Derek’s cock presses beneath fabric, listening to the way that Stiles’ breath hitches each time that Derek grinds into him.

“The next time,” Derek breathes, flexing his fingers into Stiles hips, eyes flickering over to where Stiles has buried his face into the sheets. “The next time we’re alone, I swear, Stiles, I’ll fuck you good and proper.”

Stiles moans, pushing back against Derek.

“Yeah, just like that,” Derek sighs, hooking his fingers into the waistband of Stiles’ briefs, he pulls them back down to his knees, revealing the pale, _perfect_ globes of Stiles’ ass. “You’ll moan just like that. And I’ll take my time with you, Stiles, until you’re begging for it.”

Derek leans over the bedside table, fitting his hand along Stiles’ side as he searches for the lube in the drawer.

When he sits back up again on his haunches, he pulls Stiles up with him, until he’s settled in Derek’s lap. He’s warming the bottle of lube in his hand whilst Stiles reaches back, curling his hand around Derek’s neck.

There’s a deep flush low on Stiles’ cheeks, flooding lower over his neck and into his chest, stark and beautiful against his pale skin; his hair is flattened to one side and his eyes are red and puffy from working all day, but he’s smiling, the laugh lines on the corners of his eyes crinkling, and he’s the most gorgeous thing Derek has ever seen.

He ducks in to kiss Derek, and then lips are sliding against each other, breaths catching together; it’s exhilarating and familiar in all the right ways.

When Derek drizzles the lube over his hand, wraps a fist around Stiles’ length, Stiles swears, the word dissolving into a helpless mush inside of Derek’s mouth.

Stiles trails his fingers up to tangle in Derek’s hair; their mouths are barely millimetres apart, sharing warm gusts of air between them as Derek uses the slick circle of his index and thumb to create a quick, jarring pressure just beneath the head of Stiles’ cock.

Stiles closes his eyes, eyelashes fluttering against Derek’s cheek, mouth falling slack as his chest heaves, moaned syllables drifting from his throat and Derek settles his free hand on the flat of his belly.

Derek surprises a stunned gasp from him when he abruptly changes pace. Using his fist to slide entirely down the length of Stiles’ cock, slick heat rolls down Stiles’ cock in one long devious swoop: down, down, down to the coarse curls of Stiles’ groin and then it’s moving slowly back up, quick fingers ghosting over the sensitive head before dropping back down to the base.

Stiles arches against Derek’s chest, using his free hand to brush across his nipple, smooth over the sensitive skin of his belly before finally settling against the back of Derek’s hand, long fingers slipping between Derek’s knuckles as they fist Stiles’ cock.

Derek leans in closer, eyes trained on Stiles unwavering, though hazy gaze. He lets his eyes flicker to a bright acerbic blue, he knows that Stiles likes it, and he watches as Stiles’ amber eyes darken even further, almost overtaken by his pupils.

He kisses Stiles’ slack lips, moves his mouth to pepper kisses on his husband’s cheek, the shell of his ear, breathes, “How’s your work going?”

A look of incredulity passes over Stiles’ face as he regards Derek, panting still as he says; “You want to talk about this _now_?” 

“’S the matter, Stiles?” Derek taunts lightly, curling the flat of his palm over the head of Stiles’ cock, making his hips piston forward and a tight gasp fall from Stiles’ lips. “Can’t do both at the same time?”

Stiles narrows his eyes in challenge and Derek smirks, feeling as Stiles tightens his movements, how he uses the sinuous power of his thighs to roll his hips, toned muscles gained over the years rippling beneath Derek’s palm.

Exploiting the core muscle power at the base of his stomach, Stiles drives his ass down on to the thick hardness of Derek beneath him and then swirls his hips up to fuck through the tight circle of Derek’s fist, starting up a relentless pace, face getting redder and redder with each passing second.

Resting his sweat-soaked hair back onto Derek’s shoulder, Stiles closes his eyes opens his mouth and begins on a strangely eloquent, if not stuttered, detailing of his and Lydia latest exploits.

After the mess of the nemeton and everything it entailed, Stiles was determined to find something that would, if not put a stop to his crippling nightmares, at the very least explain them.

He exhausted every avenue of supernatural research and, when that wasn’t enough, he turned to human science. Fast forward a decade, and Stiles is a newly minted research professor in cognitive neuroscience, occasionally giving out lectures at Universities and seminars but mostly working on his private research and his book on cognitive dream psychology together with Lydia.

For the moment he’s stressed because he’s only halfway through the article he’s writing for the Journal of Neuroscience due in the next month, and writer’s block has hit him particularly hard.

Stiles hasn’t had a nightmare in a few weeks, but insomnia has taken its place instead. His nightmares, though not as loud as they were when he first had them, remain steadfast in their quiet panic-ridden paralysis, with Stiles gasping awake in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat and clinging to Derek as he rides out the fear in his mind.  

“Which-. Which is why I just, ah. Just need more research,” Stiles pants, circling his hips. “Then I’ll be done for a little while.”

His eyes roll back in his head, his fingers scratching through Derek’s beard, “I’ll be all-. All yours again.”

“Good,” Derek rumbles, lips over Stiles’, breathing hot air into his mouth. “I don’t wanna share you, with anything.” Derek sighs, “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Stiles tells him, lips quirking into an easy smile. “Now, shut the fuck up and make me come.”

Derek does as obliged, fisting a lube-easy hand over Stiles’ cock, thumb rubbing mindless patterns on the bulbous head, wetted with streams of pre-come, and he quickens the pace, until Stiles is keening in the back of his throat and he comes, his spine a tight arch as jets of white, sticky come streak over his chest, settling over the softly defined planes of his body.

Derek fists him through it, his hand sticky with both lube and Stiles’ come, until Stiles is bucking gently in over stimulation, body drooping against Derek. So, Derek pushes him forward a little, turns him around and lays him to bed on his back.

Stiles stretches languidly on the sheets, the rising sun that peeks through the curtains glistening over his sweat soaked chest. He smiles, hands reaching up to curl around Derek’s head and pulls him down into a long, sated kiss.

Derek supports himself with an arm by Stiles’ head, his lube slicked hand pulling his own cock from his pants and fisting the length with quick, long strokes. Stiles keeps kissing him, hands fluttering over Derek’s body, mouth mumbling gentle encouragement over Derek’s lips until Derek is fit to burst with tension.

He comes in hot bursts, streaks and streaks of white that pool and puddle in the dips and crevices of Stiles’ belly. Derek sucks on Stiles’ tongue, pulling back to nip at the corner of his mouth, kisses getting looser and looser until they’re left grinning stupidly at each other.

When Derek pulls back a little, Stiles reaches behind his head for the pillow he’s resting on and, without further ado, uses it to clean up the come on his chest and belly. He cleans Derek’s hand and swipes it across both his and Derek’s cocks, dirtying the clean linen of the pillowcase before carelessly throwing it to the floor.

“ _Gross_ , Stiles,” Derek says, pulling a face at the look of sleepy contentment on his husband’s face.

“Your face is gross,” Stiles retorts easily, pulling up his boxers before manhandling Derek onto the only remaining pillow, curling around Derek’s back as he throws the covers over their heads and presses a gentle kiss to his shoulder. “Now, shut up. I’m trying to sleep.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's like, three major scenes left to write of this fic, I'll try and get them all done by the end of this week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter made my stomach feel funny ... I just don't like blood, eugh. 
> 
> So warnings for that, but this is pretty mild, it's not like, _traumatising_ or anything ... just a little bit icky.
> 
> :)

-

The next day starts with a crash.  

Derek is ensconced within the warmth of his bed sheets, Stiles’ arm thrown over his waist, and his husband’s cheek pressed to the tattoo on his back.

It’s only been a handful of hours since Stiles had fallen into bed, only a little while before Derek’s alarm was supposed to go off anyway, but the sun is bright beyond the curtains and Derek is loathe to get out of bed.

But there’s the sound of glass tinkering across the kitchen tiles, liquid sloshing over the floor, and Evie’s small _“oh, oh”_ that has Derek rushing down the stairs.

In the kitchen he finds Evie surrounded by a shower of glass in the corner by the window, with the remnants of Stiles’ cafetiere in her hands and a puddle of lukewarm coffee spreading around her feet.

There’s a chair haphazardly shoved up against the counter, where she’d obviously just clambered down from and a mess of sugar and coffee granules littered all over the place, spilling from the counter down to the tiled floor.

Cameron is there too, placing the tray he has in his hands, adorned with various breakfast foods, presumably for Derek and Stiles, on the kitchen table before turning back to Evie.

They haven’t noticed him yet, Cam walking towards Evie and beginning to try to pick his way around the shards of glass whilst Evie isn’t even that precautious, she’s barefoot wearing only pink pyjama shorts and the child-sized BHPD shirt Stiles’ father had gifted her the Christmas just gone; her foot is already hovering in the air when Derek storms in, halfway to stepping right on the tiny shards of glass she obviously hasn’t seen.

 _“Don’t you dare move,”_ Derek roars, voice booming loud and clear, absolutely _furious_ in the open space of the kitchen.

It makes both of his children jump, Evie curling in on herself, big eyes snapping to Derek whilst Cam, in his surprise, slips on the viscous liquid oozing across the tiles, only catching himself on the counter at the last second, crying out in pain from the impact.

Derek trudges back out of the kitchen and towards the front door, slipping on a worn pair of sneakers from the shoe rack before heading back just as Stiles rushes down the stairs, hastily pulling a shirt on over his head, heavy distress lining his tired face.

He’s barely a pace behind Derek as they march to the kitchen, and he presses his hand to Derek’s lower back in a fleeting touch.

“What is it?” he asks edgily. “What’s happened? Derek?”

But Derek doesn’t have to explain because as soon as they enter the kitchen, and the disaster of food and glass around it, it becomes pretty clear precisely what is wrong.

“What the fuck,” Stiles falters, standing stock still in the middle of the kitchen as he takes it all in. “What the _hell_ just happened?”

Evie’s already beginning to cry, eyes opened wide and tears smudged on her cheeks with the back of her hand, breath shortening to small puffs. Derek plucks her up from the ground and hands her to Stiles, glass crunching beneath his feet.

Then, he picks up Cam and sits him on top of the kitchen table, snappily beginning to search the palms of his son’s hands and the soles of his feet for shards of glass.

Stiles is doing the same to Evie on the other side of the table, crouching down in front of where he’s perched her on the chair and muttering indignations under his breath as he does so.

Cam remains silent in front of Derek, the corners of his mouth pulled down and his throat working over the hiccoughs of breath he’s heaving, eyes red and blinking fast.

“I can’t believe this,” Stiles scolds hotly, brows drawn together in tempestuous disapproval. “What the hell were you thinking? _Both_ of you. How could you be so _damn_ irresponsible?”

“’M sorry,” Evie cries, her voice thick, teardrops pooling in the apples of her cheeks. “Pappy, I‘m _sorry_. I din’ mean to.”

Cam sniffs, looking up at Derek, mouth scrunching into a small moue, “I’m sorry, dad.”

“An apology is a little futile now, don’t you think?” Derek snaps, directing a heated glare at him and then at where Evie has turned to look over her shoulder at them. “And you should know better,” Derek continues, turning his reprimand on to his son. “I _expect_ better.”

Derek moves on to Cam’s right hand, uncurling his son’s fingers from his palm to check for glass. Cam winces, stuttering out a pained gasp that has Derek’s gaze turning sharply to his face, stilling completely as he checks Cam’s hand more gently.

And there, right there between Cam’s second and third knuckle, a clear shard of glass stands in relief from where it’s embedded in Cam’s skin. Derek wraps his hand around his kid’s small wrist, instantly absorbing his pain, whilst the other cups around Cam’s hurt hand and gently presses his thumb over his palm, trying to gauge the size of the shard.

Derek’s stomach rolls when he realises just how far the shard goes, more than halfway through into his son’s hand. Cam’s crying in earnest now, sniffing hard as he blinks the tears from his eyes.

“Stiles,” Derek says, interrupting Stiles’ long ramble of a lecturing spiel on the other side of the table, “Get the first aid kit.”

Derek hears no sound of Stiles moving away at all, his attention focused almost wholly on Cam, but even Evie’s sobs have calmed to occasional gasps, and so he looks up.

Stiles is stood frozen in front of Evie, he looks beyond tired, dark circles beneath his red-rimmed eyes, but more than that; Stiles is pale and wide-eyed, his piercing gaze stuck on Cam’s heaving form.

“Is he-?”

“Stiles,” Derek stresses. “ _Now_.”

Stiles turns on his heel and rushes back into the hall, reaching into the cupboard underneath the stairs for one of the myriad of first aid kits they have on hand.

Whilst both Evie and Cam are werewolves like their dad, they haven’t got nearly as many of the perks, so to speak, that Derek has quite just yet.

They’ll mature into their supernatural abilities with time, but for now they can’t shift, they have a limited use of their senses and their healing is considerably and significantly slowed down.

Stiles moves to stand beside Derek, his face softened from righteous crossness to pure concern; Cam’s still crying, his hurt hand held aloft in Derek’s and his cheeks burning red.

Stiles fumbles with the latch on the first aid kit, opening it with so much force that most of its contents spills on to Cam’s lap and the surface of the table.

“He has glass stuck in his hand,” Derek tells him.

“How deep?”

Derek indicates two thirds of the way down Cam’s palm and Stiles pales, freezes.

“Fuck,” he says. “Holy shit.”

“Language,” Derek reminds him absently.

“Sorry,” he replies, and then to Cam: “Don’t repeat that.”  

“He must have embedded the shard when he slammed his hand on the counter,” Derek notes, looking over at the forgotten corner of where the dismantled cafetiere still remains. And, on the counters surrounding it, there are indeed shards of glass scattered over the tops. One of such shard must have buried in Cam’s skin when Derek yelled at him earlier, when he _scared_ him into hitting his hand on the counter.

Derek takes a deep breath, tries to settle the acid in his stomach and swallows.

Stiles glances at him, fingers curling through Cam’s hair, “What are we going to do?”

Derek sighs, running his free hand over the coarseness of his beard, “I’m going to have to take it out.”

Cam’s cries thicken at that, and he’s begging Derek, “ _No_. Don’t take it out, please, dad, please!”

“I need to, Cam,” Derek says, briefly tightening his fingers around his son’s wrist in regret, but Cam is shaking his head, repeating _“no, no, no”_ under his breath even as he sobs.

Stiles crowds in closer, placing the first aid kit on the table he stoops over Cam and cups his jaw, turning him towards him.

“Cameron, hey,” Stiles soothes, voice mollifying to that of a mere whisper. “Hey, kiddo. Look at me.”

Cam does, green eyes locking on to amber ones, Stiles’ hands cupping the heated fullness of his cheeks, gentle thumbs rubbing away the tears.

“We’re gonna do this okay, buddy?” Stiles tells him quietly. “And it’s going to be okay, so quick, you won’t even notice it.”

“It’s gonna hurt,” Cam protests weakly, sniffing miserably as his breath hitches over his words.

“It’s not going to,” Stiles assures. “Dad’s going to take the pain away, right?”

Cam glances at Derek, eyes glassy-wet and red-rimmed and Derek says, “Always.”

“See, nothing to worry about,” Stiles goes on, trying a small smile. “I’m going to be right here.”

Upstairs, Derek’s alarm clock for work begins to sound off, the sole and only reason he has to be up so early on a Sunday. He turns to his daughter; still sitting on the chair Stiles placed her in, “Eve, go turn that off for me, would you?”

She goes without question, and her feet are pounding the way upstairs by the time that Derek has extended his claws. Cam’s breath hitches at the sight of them, squirming in his seat.

Stiles shushes him, “No, don’t look, Cam. Don’t look.”

He guides Cam’s head to his stomach, and Cam squeezes his eyes tight, burying his face in his father’s belly, free arm wrapping around Stiles’ waist, fingers fisting into the material of his shirt.

“There you go,” Stiles soothes, one hand rubbing Cam’s back and the other trailing fingers through his hair. He looks at Derek and nods grimly for him to start.

The process of removing it is an ordeal.

Derek is steadily taking Cam’s pain, phantom lines of black surging through his veins; and he’s doing all he can, but it doesn’t mean that the weird, unsettling feeling of glass scraping through bone and cartilage is an altogether too pleasant sensation for the kid, even without the pain.

Stiles pointedly doesn’t look at where Derek is picking at a long shard of glass wetted with their son’s blood, merely rubs Cam’s back and mutters gentle encouragement.

When it’s done, when the shard of glass is finally out from Cam’s hand, Derek tries his hardest not to think how he’s just spilled his kid’s blood.

Now, Derek’s not superstitious by a long shot, not like his own mother, his first Alpha, was. But there are a few things, certain things that have stuck with him in the intervening years.

He knows enough about lore and supernatural divination to know that the spilling of kin’s blood, accidental though it may be, does not a good omen make.

Derek shakes his head of his thoughts and deposits the glass in the sink in favour of responding to Stiles’ questioning look.

When he gets back, Cam is resting his temple on Stiles’ stomach, he watches Derek steadily. His eyes are blazing preternaturally gold, chest rattling with each breath where he’s slumped against his father, his eyelashes clumped together with remnant tears; Stiles is still stroking his back.

Derek gently takes hold of Cam’s hand, and Cam sniffles only a little when Derek dabs rubbing alcohol on his wound, wincing against Stiles with the stinging ache of it.

Derek wraps his son’s hand in bandages quickly and effectively; the surface cut, while only being around about a half an inch in width, is in too awkward a place for a bandage and it’ll take a few hours at the very least for it to heal completely.

So Derek bandages the cut diagonally and across the palm, to hold it in place, as well as wrapping it around so that Cam’s middle fingers are held tightly together.

This way, Cam won’t keep re-opening the wound through out the day. Derek kisses his the swell of his palm before letting go completely.

Stiles sighs in relief.

“There you go,” Stiles says to Cam, picking him up, Cam’s leg’s wrapped around his waist, arms draped over his shoulder. “All done.”

“This doesn’t mean you’re not in trouble,” Derek warns Cam, a disciplinary finger aimed at him as he nods miserably.

“Of course not,” Stiles agrees, but then he’s glancing down at Cam, face softening despite everything. “But now you’re my little ogre. My three-fingered, wayward little ogre.”

Cam buries his face in Stiles’ shoulder, face heating up with embarrassment, and he sniffs loudly.

“You’re just going to be grounded until the dawn of the next eternity,” Stiles continues easily, swaying Cam in his hold. “That goes for you too, Evelyn.”

And there in the doorway’s threshold is Evie, Derek hadn’t even heard her come back down, Stiles’ self-righteous smirk tells him that he’s aware of this fact also.

Derek shudders to think of what Stiles would be capable of if he had the full range of lycanthropic abilities at his disposal.

“I have to go to work,” Derek tells him instead, re-organising the first aid kit within the box, snapping it shut with a quiet snick.

Stiles sighs but he nods, “I know you do.”

Derek presses a kiss to his lips in apology before walking past him and towards the stairs.

He’s halfway up when he glances down to see Stiles place Cameron down, nudging him out of the kitchen with a hand to his back and directing both he and his sister to the living room.

“Now,” Stiles says, hands on his boxer-brief clad hips. “The three of us are going to talk about a little something I like to call, _‘Don’t touch Papa’s stuff …’_ ” 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omens, what omens? It's not like there's going to angst in this or anything. I don't know what you're talking about.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh. I wrote a hell of a lot more in this chapter than I was intending to. 
> 
> Fun fact, numero uno: I just realised that I subconsciously wrote Cam and Evie a lot like my sister and I, with even the same age difference and everything. Needless to say, I am clearly the cooler older sibling. 
> 
> Fun fact, numero dos: It's half three in the morning and I haven't done any of the readings nor the work I have for my Philosophy tutorial tomorrow. 
> 
> Fun fact, numero tres: A year ago, two Christmases past, of 2012, my friend Harry gifted me a book named Eragon by Christopher Paolini. It's about dragons. I still haven't read it yet. 
> 
> :)
> 
> (p.s. i'm probably murdering the Spanish conjugations up there, but i literally dgaf. it's half three, i'm going to bed.)

-

Derek gets to work in record time, barely refraining from speeding his way down to the centre of town, though the thought of being pulled over by his father-in-law is a very good deterrent.

He scrubs a hand through his hair as he gets out of the car, feeling discomfited and unprepared; he wipes his hands on his dark slacks, straightening his blazer as he walks.

He hadn’t really wanted to leave the house, but his work is also important to him, Derek’s a community officer, who as well as offering physical support to cops on patrol, spent most of his time with troubled youths in the county.

The kids that Derek saw, ranging from their preteens up to twenty-four, were the cases handed to him as a last resort before sending them to correctional centres.

“Delinquents,” Stiles had called them once, years and years ago now. “Delinquents and head cases.”

“Like a few people I could mention,” Derek had snapped, throwing a pointed look at the then-teenagers that made up his pack.

It was the Sheriff’s idea in the first place, for getting Derek on the straight and narrow, if he wanted to continue dating Stiles, that was.

He told Derek that he had the look of military experience and an innate authority, partly left over from his brief stint in Alphahood, that would, as the Sheriff put it, make the kids _‘shit their pants’_.

But it was more than that, now, because Derek genuinely cares for the kids he saw, he wants to help them, like he hadn’t been helped. And he likes the pride that Stiles takes in him.

The less, _well known_ , factor of Derek’s career is that he’s an appointment ‘councillor’ to the supernatural.

The Nemeton still attracts all sorts to the sleepy town of Beacon Hills, to this day. They’re not _all_ bad, and the pack takes care of the percentage that _is_ , so the incoming traffic allows for Derek to offer council to those affected by the supernatural in itself or by the trauma caused by hunters trying to eviscerate them.

Derek has undergone a lot of changes in the past few years, after seeing his own therapist for years and then going on to follow his own career, he is now unburdened by many of the things that had been hanging over his shoulders, not all, but enough.

Though, the same can’t be said for a lot of the supernaturals Derek sees.

Derek has, as Stiles has said, been through every sort of supernaturally inclined traumatic bullshit imaginable, so who better to prevent it happening to somebody else, or to help those who have already been through it; because, if anything Derek learns from his mistakes.

As such, Derek’s supernatural appointments are scarce and sporadic; so he spends most of his time investing in the educating sector, filling in as a support officer to the local middle and high schools on weekdays and tending to his private appointments in the afternoons and Sunday mornings.

Derek has hardly sat down for ten minutes, draping his suit jacket on the back of his chair and setting up his computer and his work phone before there’s a brisk knock on the door.

Cara, Derek’s assistant pokes her head through the door, “Macy’s here to see you.”

Macy, one of Derek’s kids comes in shortly after. She’s human, and blissfully unaware of the supernatural. She was caught around a year ago shoplifting, not for the first time, and was promptly sent off to Derek.

She was arrogant and brutish when they first met, reminding him a lot of Cora when they were first reunited.

But now, like Cora, Macy’s well on her way to becoming an upstanding citizen, as well as a sober one.

Derek had gotten her a job three months into her recovery program, as a menial assistant at a photographer’s studio. The job isn’t much, and it doesn't pay a hell of a lot, but for a nineteen-year-old Macy who has to support herself, it's more than enough. It got her food and friends, and brought back a smile on her face.

She wears the same smile today; her hair is in two long dark brown braids hanging over her shoulder, her bangs and a few tendrils loosened to curve delicately around her face.

“Hey, Derek,” she greets, adjusting her weathered messenger bag higher on her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” he replies, offering her a small smile in return as he straightens up in his seat. He takes note of the slight tiredness of her expression. “Late shift last night?”

She drops on to one of the leather chairs opposite Derek with a huff, rolling her eyes.

“Like you wouldn’t _believe_ ,” she says, leaning forward. “Toby is trying to kill me.”

Derek’s brows rise on his forehead, he looks at her because surely she doesn’t mean-

“Not literally,” she rolls her eyes. “Settle your eyebrows down. No, Toby's  _absolutely_ convinced he heard wolves in the preserve. And you know he’s doing the new tourism brochure for the county, right? So he really, and I mean _really_ , wants a picture of the wolves, and he made the whole team go camping.”

“Really?” Derek asks, trying to sound appropriately serious whilst attempting to smother a smile behind his hand. He coughs, scratching the back of his ear. “Wolves, huh?”

“This isn’t funny, Derek,” Macy groans, throwing her hands up. “There are no _wolves_ in California.”

“I’m actually more surprised that you went _camping_ to be fair, Mace,” Derek replies.

She throws him a glare.

“I had to sleep on the ground. The _ground_ , Derek,” she grumbles. “He totally thinks he’s some kind of Bear Grylls!”

Bracing her elbows on the surface of the table, Macy leans forward to tell him about her harrowing ordeal within the thin coverage of her tent.

-

It’s very, very early in the afternoon when Derek gets back home. Only a couple of hours since he’s left and the house is pretty much quiet. Cam is in the living room curled up on the corner of the couch, head pillowed on his arms, reading one of his books.

Evie is on the floor in front of him, carefully building a Lego house on the coffee table, mouth pursed in concentration.

Derek leaves them be for a second, instead placing his messenger bag and his overcoat at the stand by the door.

He can hear the tap water running in the kitchen and follows the sound.

He finds Stiles there, by the sink, washing a handful of leeks beneath the tap, setting them out in a bowl by his side.

“Hey,” Derek greets, shouldering out of his blazer, draping it over one of kitchen chairs.

Taking a glance around the kitchen, he would never have guessed the utter pandemonium that had taken place earlier that morning, pristine as it now is.

Derek steps up to Stiles’ back, his arm reaching around his waist to settle a large hand against his stomach.

Stiles turns to peck him on the lips, but it’s far too chaste and quick for Derek’s liking; so he chases after Stiles’ mouth, sucking on the lush cupid’s bow of his upper lip.

Eventually, they pull away with Siles pressing two lingering kisses on Derek’s mouth before he turns away. He seems more than a little distracted though, lost in his own mind even as his hands work with methodical precision.  

“What’s wrong?” Derek asks, hands moving to Stiles’ sides, squeezing down a little.

“Nothing,” Stiles says, but he doesn’t look up at Derek, turning his body a little, reaching over the counter to grab the bowl of peeled potatoes.

Derek crowds in closer, body melding to the line of Stiles’, mouth pressing a small kiss to the hollow beneath Stiles’ ear.

His hand moves to rub large comforting circles on Stiles’ stomach through the fabric of his shirt, “What are you making?”

“Soup,” Stiles says, his voice clipped, tiredness rounding out the syllable.

Derek frowns, because while Stiles being irritable is commonplace when he hasn’t had much sleep, he’s never usually this short with him.

“What’s wrong?”

“There's _nothing_ wrong,” Stiles tells him, the potato in his hand slips out of his grasp, the thudding clunk of it loud in the building tension of the kitchen.

“Right,” Derek drawls, hand stilling on Stiles’ stomach. “And that’s exactly why you’re in such a delightful mood.”

“Derek,” Stiles warns.

“Well, clearly _something's_ wrong,” he insists. “You’re upset and-"

“I’m allowed to be upset,” Stiles snaps, interjecting sharply, elbow pushing Derek away from him as he slips out of his grasp, huddling closer to the sink. “I don’t need you to bring in the inquisition, alright?”

Stiles sighs, shoulders fraught and stiff with tension.

“Jesus, Derek,” he mutters under his breath, determinedly not glancing over at him. “Learn when to _back off_.”

So Derek does.

He leaves Stiles to his heated slump in the kitchen and moves into the front sitting room instead. Evie briefly glances up at Derek before she turns back to the Lego construction in front of her, tilting her cheek up in expectation.

Derek kneels beside her, his smart dress pants digging into the plush area rug, and presses a kiss to the offered cheek.

He tucks a few wisps of hair behind her ear, touches the forest green jewels of the silver hair clips Stiles had slid into her hair earlier in the morning.

“What’re you building?”

“Princess spaceship," she replies, sliding in another block into place. She looks at him gravely, “’S very important, daddy.”

Derek nods gravely back; it looks neither like a princess nor a spaceship, mostly like a three-pronged multi-coloured vegetable that went a little wayward somewhere along the line of its creation.

“It’s beautiful,” he tells her.

Behind him, Cam’s on the couch, pretending not to be interested in Derek’s arrival, though he knows for a fact that Cam’s been stuck reading the same sentence over and again.

He lifts up from his knees and plucks Cam from the sofa, Cam squawks in indignation, but it’s not like he’s doing an entirely grand job of hiding the pleased smile on his face.

Derek sits down heavily on to the couch, sinking deeply into butter-soft leather of it with a sigh, settling Cam over his lap as if he weighs nothing more than a feather.

He takes Cam’s book straight out of his son’s hand, making extra sure to not lose the place, and holds it out of reach. Cam makes a half-hearted attempt at reaching it, but he’s mostly just happy settling in Derek’s lap, socked feet splayed out over the rest of the couch.

“Eragon,” Derek reads from the spine. “What’s it about?”

“Dragons.”

Figures.

“Your dad bought it for you, I take it?”

“Grandpa,” Cam corrects, taking the book back from Derek, dropping his head against the curved arm of the couch.

“What?” Derek asks. “When?”

“At Christmas.”

Derek doesn’t remember this, “I don’t remember this.”

Cam rolls his eyes, turning over the page of his book with a swift flick, and Derek thinks he should be offended but Cam’s sprawling lazily over Derek, leg periodically thumping against soft brown leather, expression calm as can be and it settles something good and wholesome in Derek’s belly.

“It was in my stocking, Dad,” Cam continues, fingers ruffling over the pages; the gauze that Derek had wrapped around his cut earlier that morning is startlingly stark white against his son’s skin.

“How’s your hand?” he asks, rubbing his thumb over Cam’s knuckles. Cam looks instantly ashamed, most likely remembering the utter fury on Derek’s face earlier.

“Good,” Cam says, flexing his fingers against Derek’s broad hand. “’S not hurting anymore.”

Derek hums, pulling Cam up by his armpits to sit properly on Derek’s lap. Taking out the small safety pin keeping the gauze together in the base of Cam’s palm, he unravels it with care.

The skin between Cam’s knuckles is smooth, with a pale pink line running over where the cut used to be.

“It’s healing nicely,” Derek murmurs, his thumb smoothing over the skin. “Wiggle your fingers for me.”

Cam does, and he seems to move his fingers with no visible discomfort, so Derek relaxes a little bit.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again,” he warns, eyes boring into Cam’s, hating the recollection of the fear that gripped his chest when he entered the kitchen that morning. “Either of you.”

Cam swallows, nodding tightly.

“What the hell were you even _thinking_ , Cam?” Derek beseeches. “How many times have I told you to be careful?”

“I wanted to make you breakfast,” Cam mumbles, free hand fiddling with the corner of the book on his lap. “For Pa too.”

“You _never_ make breakfast,” Derek frowns, confused, his thumb settling in the palm of his son’s hand. “You’re never even awake early enough _to_ make breakfast.”

Cam shrugs, trying to play it off as being more casual than it actually is.

“We just wanted to make Papa feel better,” he confides, gaze fixed firmly on the other end of the couch, a small frown between his brows, he shrugs once more. “He's been having bad nighttimes again."

From the kitchen, there comes a cacophony of noise, brittle and sharp as metal collides with the hard tiles of the floor. Stiles comes rushing down the corridor, thundering up the stairs without so much as a glance at his family in the sitting room.

It’s obvious that he’d been listening in, that he’d heard what Cam had said; and the dark flush that Derek spies over his cheek suggests his utter shame.

Evie’s eyes are wide open as she stands up, ready to go after him.

Derek places Cam on the sofa beside him and stands too, though he grabs Evie before she gets too far, placing her next to Cam.

“Stay here,” he orders them absently, mind entirely on Stiles as he follows him up the stairs.

He catches him by the elbow just as Stiles is about to rush into their en-suite bathroom. Stiles struggles against him, his body winding and twisting as he tries to evade Derek’s grasp, but Derek holds steadfast, pulling him towards him.

Stiles’ arms are squashed between their chests, his body stiff and heavy against Derek’s, like he’s holding himself densely, barely even breathing.

Derek crushes Stiles to him, arms wrapped around his husband’s back, squeezing so tight he can almost hear Stiles’ ribs compress. He squeezes and he squeezes and he _squeezes_ , until Stiles dislodges his arms from Derek’s chest, wraps them over Derek’s shoulders with a dry, rasped sob; fingers digging into skin over the thin veneer that Derek’s dress shirt provides.

“All this time,” Stiles bites out, bitterness curling around the half-abandoned wisps of air he’s breathing, hot and panicked, against Derek’s neck. “All this time and they _knew_ ; they could hear-.”

Derek shushes him quickly, one large hand fitting against the back of Stiles’ skull and he marvels, marvels at how small Stiles can appear to be sometimes, hunching his broad shoulders and ducking his head to rest his face in the crook of Derek’s neck.

“They could _hear_ me, Derek,” Stiles repeats, voice strained and thin. “When I was-”

“I know,” Derek murmurs, catching Stiles as his knees give out. “I know.”

He sits him down on the edge of the bed, kneels down in front of him, hands coming to rest on Stiles’ waist.

Stiles’ elbows are digging into his own thighs, hair caught in tufts between the gaps in his fingers, chest heaving with laboured breaths.

He runs his hands through his hair with a heavy exhale, interlinking his fingers on the back of his neck, he looks at Derek through his lashes, eyes red-rimmed and wet.

“Am I a terrible parent?”

“No,” Derek says, shuffling in closer. “No, you’re an overworked parent; a tired, _stressed_  parent. But you're not a a bad one.”

Derek rubs his thumb over Stiles’ cheek, “You can’t keep doing this, Stiles. You haven’t slept properly in days. In w _eeks_ , even.”

Stiles remains quiet, looking over Derek’s shoulder, chewing on his lip for a long moment.

“I just don’t want to see you ripped apart,” he confesses, eyes drifting back to Derek. He takes a quick, shallow breath, licks his lips. “When I close my eyes,” he says quietly. “Whenever I dream, you-.”

Stiles chokes on his words, cutting himself off and Derek doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t. He flexes his fingers on Stiles’ waist, pulls him from the edge of the bed until Stiles’ knees thunk on the floor at either side of Derek, his weight comfortably distributed on his husband’s lap.

“I’m right here,” Derek tells him, throat clicking as he speaks. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t understand,” Stiles says, mouth thinning out to pale white. “I keep seeing you, and you’re in _pieces_ , Derek. I just _can’t_ -.” Stiles pauses abruptly, eyes going distant with memories of dreams he refuses to share with Derek.

Then he blinks, gaze locking on to Derek, their foreheads coming to rest on each other. Stiles isn’t crying, and that’s what worst about it.

His eyes are red-rimmed, glossy with tears he’s determined to keep back, but his gaze remains unwavering: steady, sombre, resigned.

“I don’t want to forget you,” Stiles continues, touching cool fingertips to Derek's jaw, and then he waves an idle hand to encompass the room. “Or this, the life we’ve built for us. Our pack. Our _children_. I can’t do that, Derek. So I have to find _something_ , I have to find a cure.”

Stiles sighs, fingers curling around the starched collar of Derek’s dress shirt, his voice is calm and solid.

“I can’t keep wondering if today or the next day or the day after that or after that, if _that's_ gonna be the day that I’ll wake up. And I’ll be sixteen years old, and that we-, our _family_ isn’t real.”

Derek kisses him then, long and wanting, until their lungs burn for breath and their hearts beat tight and hard against their ribcages; Stiles tucks his head into the crook of Derek’s shoulder, breathing deep and hard.

Derek kisses his temple, “I love you,” he says, breath ruffling the soft tendrils of Stiles’ hair. “So, _so_ much, Stiles.”

He can feel Stiles’ arms wind around him; pulling Derek ever closer and they stay there for a long, long time.

-

Stiles adjusts his head, cheek rubbing on the soft material of Derek’s shirt before he settles once again, soft exhales warm on Derek’s neck.

“I was really irritable today,” he comments.

“Really?” Derek remarks innocently. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Stiles swats at Derek’s lower back, disinclined to do anything more than a lazy tap.

“Especially after this morning,” he continues. “And Evie would _not_ stop singing.” 

Derek wonders where she got _that_ from, tells Stiles as much; he ignores him.

“The full moon’s in two days, Stiles,” Derek notes, the kids are too young to shift but they usually can feel the pull of the night beneath their skins, making it a terrible, _terrible_ time for all involved.

Stiles stiffens in Derek’s arms, stopping his breathing all at once. There’s a long pause.

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

“No,” Stiles says. Then, with a groan, he thunks his head against Derek’s shoulder, admitting, “Yes.”

Derek sighs, pulling Stiles closer, shrugging it off even though he can’t help the residual sting of irritation in his words. “So, Evie was restless. And?”

“And I maybe yelled at her a little.”

“A little?”

“A lot,” Stiles confesses with an uneasy wince. There’s a pause. “She hates me now, I think.”

“Apologise,” Derek shrugs. “She’ll get over it.”

Stiles sighs, long and haggard, pulling back to look at Derek’s face, arms draped over his husband’s shoulders. “I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”

“Now, or just in general?”

Stiles levels him with a flat look.

“You’re such a dork,” he says. “I don’t know why I married you.”

Derek raises his eyebrows, “For my hot ass.”

Stiles rolls his eyes with an aggrieved sigh, pushes himself to his feet.

“Hey,” Derek defends as Stiles walks over to the chest of drawers by the window. “I’m not the one our daughter hates.”

Stiles pauses by the chest, resting his ass on the corner, popping a caffeine pill from the box they keep in the top drawer.

“You know, I told her I would watch Power Rangers with her,” Stiles reveals conversationally, looking at Derek with the faint beginnings of a smile. He puts the pill in his mouth. “She told me she’d watch it with Cam instead.”

Derek hisses a sympathetic breath through his teeth. Evie _never_ wants to watch Power Rangers, or anything really, with Cam.

She says he distracts her his on-going commentary and criticisms. Because of course, the one true time that Derek and Stiles’ son is actually, and voluntarily talkative is during their daughter’s television time; that realisation beings Derek up short.

“Evie’s grounded,” he says to Stiles. “She can’t watch TV for two days.”

“I was willing to make an exception,” Stiles reasons, offering his palms to Derek. Then, he looks sheepish, “I may or may not have also allowed Cam to play Nintendo too.”

“ _You_ made up the grounding rules in the first place,” Derek exclaims, looking at Stiles with exasperation marking his face. “No candy, no electronics, no soda pop. Those are the rules.”

“Our daughter hates me, Derek,” Stiles exasperates, as if he were the one being perfectly reasonable. “I had to bring in the heavy artillery.”

Derek rolls his eyes, “She does _not_ hate you.”

“I mean, what did you expect?” Stiles continues, and Derek figures that he may as well be talking to himself.

“For me to just take this lying down?”

“You’re being overdramatic-”

“It’s been _hours_ since she last spoke to me,” Stiles laments loudly, dramatically dropping his head back. “And every time she looks at me with those, those eyebrows of yours, I feel like she’s going to threaten to rip my throat out-”

Derek stands up, moving towards his husband. “I’ve _actually_ married a child.”

“With her _teeth_ ,” Stiles emphasises, grinning once Derek stops in front of him.

Derek presses a chaste kiss on Stiles lips, then on the tip of his nose, his forehead, his mouth again.

“Would you like me to take the kids out?” Derek suggests, hands cupping Stiles’ jaw. “Give you a chance to work for a little bit.”

“Would I be a terrible person if I said yes?”

“No.”

“Then, _God_ _yes_ ,” Stiles groans, leaning forward to press a grateful kiss to Derek’s mouth.

-

Derek bundles the kids in the car and takes them to the electrical store, his eye trained on the clock on the dashboard.

It’s early afternoon, but it _is_ a Sunday, most stores will be closing extra early, so maybe Derek drives a little more recklessly than usual. 'More recklessly' meaning he’s going eight miles above the limit instead of the usual five, he is a father now after all.

Cam gets out of the car first; standing on the curb with his Nintendo poised in front of his face and his free hand aloft in the air, waiting for Derek in clear, if not dismissive, expectation.

Derek places Evie on the ground and she saunters off to the front of the store, purple day dress fluttering out behind her. He locks the car, a silver Audi A6 Stiles had forced him to buy to replace the hideous Toyota when they’d first began dating, and walks towards Cam, taking his proffered hand before trudging after Evie.

They get to the store with fifteen minutes to spare, the store assistant by the door doesn’t look particularly pleased about letting them in, but he doesn’t look particularly inclined to confront Derek about it either, so whatever.

He finds the aisle he’s looking for quickly, managing to keep Evie from causing too much trouble by hooking a finger in the back of her dress and pulling her swiftly back whenever she looks in danger of wandering off.

Derek buys the newest model of Stiles’ old cafetiere, he knows how Stiles gets without his coffee, and he can’t wait to see the look on his face when Derek shows up with it later.

Once the cafetiere is bought and stashed away in the trunk, they go to the park. He takes them to the park over on the other side of town, close enough to their neighbourhood.

The newly erected playground is vibrant with jade-green grass and bold colours splashed about, it has a fancy water fountain and a vendor selling hot dogs over by the wayside, catering to the trendy parents and their gaggle of annoying children. 

Evie runs straight off to the sandpit, where two other children in neat cotton polo shirts and dirtied pants are already playing, and flashes them a smile, making instant friends as she helps to build their castle.

Derek sighs, another pair of pristine white tights sacrificed to the greater good of friendship, he supposes.

Cam follows Derek to an empty bench, Derek scowling darkly at the interested looks thrown their way, clutching tightly to his book, Cam living in his electronic world.

“Don’t you want to go play?” he asks Cam once he settles in, his son’s feet kicked over the rest of the wooden bench, his head leaning against Derek’s shoulder.

He smacks his licks, “Nope.”

Derek sighs, leaning back against the bench and manoeuvring so as Cam’s head settles into his lap, game console over his face. With one arm draped over Cam’s stomach, and the other on the stiff arm of the bench, Derek begins to read.

Later, when Cam loses interest in his Nintendo and the rest of the families have already left for home, he pushes up from Derek and heads towards his sister.

He sits beside Evie for a little while, helping her pile up sand into one large mound.

“What are we building?” Cam asks her.

“Rocket spaceship.”

Cam side-eyes her, “A princess rocket spaceship?”

Evie pauses, mouth falling open, slowly turning to Cam with a look of unbridled awe. “How’d you _know?_ ”

Derek watches the kids make a circuit of the playground, Cam pushing Evie on the swings before he settles in beside her, walking backwards before letting go and pushing forward as he swings.

Then over to the roundabout, then it’s the swings again, then it’s the jungle gym and then the sandpit and finally the seesaw, over which they argue lightly over which flavour of Pop-tarts is clearly superior, voices bouncing from octave to octave as they absorb the force of the plank hitting the ground.

“All of them,” declares Evie. “At the same time.”

She's clearly Stiles’ child, through and through, and Derek won’t take credit for her (disgusting) tastes.

“With butter,” she adds as an afterthought; Derek heartily sympathises with the look on Cam’s face.

But now, they’ve been out of the house for a good few hours now, and dusk is gathering quickly. He calls out to his children and begins to head back to the car.

They follow him reluctantly, filled with groans and overdramatic sighs, but Derek merely gives them a look.

He puts Evie over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes, he tells her as she hangs limp, hands thudding lightly over his back, humming with every step Derek’s takes, clearly amused in the dips and catches of her voice each time Derek’s shoulder presses into her stomach.

Derek places his other hand on the back of Cam’s neck, rubbing just beneath the hollow of his ear before bundling him up into the car, making sure he’s buckled up in his seat, Nintendo console opened and his eyes sleepy, before Derek leans over to place Evie through the door. 

He’s in the process of buckling Evie into her car seat when, from the other side, Cam makes a small noise in the back of his throat, thumbs stilling over the keyboard of his Nintendo.

Derek looks up, face softening at the look of utter distress on his son’s face, mouth pulling down, eyes widening.

“Did you lose a game?” Derek asks him, pushing the childlock on Evie’s seatbelt. “Cam?”

Derek realises only too late that Cam’s not looking at him, but rather over his shoulder, wide eyes on an unseen danger; a chill runs through his spine.

Derek’s halfway to turning; body crouched in the defensive position in front of his children almost immediately.

He only has time to hear Cam’s distraught, _“Dad!”_ and the matte black surface of the barrel of a gun before there’s a sharp pinprick on the skin of his neck.

There’s a dart stuck in neck and his children stuck in the car; the darkness clouds over him in one fell swoop.

Derek's falling to the ground before he even knows it.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, LOL, as if you though Derek Hale could have an easy life.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a problematic attachment to using commas, apparently. 
> 
> (warnings for violence, mild gore and, quite frankly, an appalling treatment of fellow human beings)

- 

There’s nothing soft or groggy about the way that Derek wakes up.

He doesn’t come to with a low groan or a slow, lethargic blink of his eyes.

Instead, it’s quick and immediate; he’s alert as soon as he wakes up, even before he opens his eyes. He doesn’t want to alarm his would-be captors to the state of alertness so he stays immobile, honing his senses to figure out what the hell is going on.

Derek can only pick up two heartbeats other than his own, and the small intakes of breath that accompany them, it’s as familiar as the palm of his hand: his _children_.

Derek’s up on the balls of his feet before he knows it, up from the sprawled out mess he was on his back not two seconds ago.

Cam and Evie are sitting on the floor just a few feet from him, bodies curling into each other and hands tangled together. Cam’s eyes are red and puffy, but Evie is still crying jagged puffs of air into her brother’s chest, burying her face into the soft cotton of Cam’s pullover.

She notices Derek first, gulping breaths catching in her throat before she throws herself at her father, a mangled “ _Daddy!_ ” muffled into the crook of Derek’s neck. He starts comforting her almost automatically, pressing a kiss to her hair and murmuring nonsense whilst his free hand reaches out to pull Cam towards him.

“It’s okay,” Derek tells them, the space between his lungs burning white hot with the lie. “I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

Cam sags into Derek’s warmth, squeezing his eyes shut as his hands fist into the material of Derek’s shirt.

There’s no way to tell how much time has passed, or how long Derek’s been out of commission and it _hurts_ because Derek has no way of gauging how long his children have been exposed to whomever has taken them.

Derek checks over each of them frantically, a little too rough in his desperation but he can’t help himself, asking over and over, “Are you alright? Did they hurt you? Are you hurt? Talk to _me_.”

The room they’ve been kept in, when Derek finally decides to take it in, is sparse and small. There is one very small glassless window near the top corner of the far wall and a toilet fitted into one corner, the floor is smooth polished cement and the walls are smoothed down to a matte grey block that encroaches them on all sides.

There’s a thick line of mountain ash lines the back wall and the two side walls, in front of Derek, the mountain ash curves in a semi-circle from one side of the room to the other, trapping them. The door is a few paces beyond that curving line, and it looks like it’s heavy duty: solid, grey and ugly, with bars of metal crisscrossing over the frame work and a heavy lock plate.

There is no way to tell the time of day or how many hours have passed, or if anyone has any inkling of their disappearance yet. There’s nothing to do but wait, now. So, Derek takes off his overcoat and he sits on the floor, pulling his children towards him, tucking them into either side as he drapes his coat over them.

The mountain ash lining the back wall won’t let him lean back against the brick, so Derek hunches forward instead and cocoons his children within the circle of his arms.

He sighs deeply, sends out a silent prayer in the hopes that Stiles will find them soon enough and presses a kiss to Cam and Evie’s heads.

Evie gets restless fast. She’s burrowing into Derek’s belly, trying with all her might to distance herself from the dense, humid darkness of the room they’re in, making small, hurt sounds at the back of her throat. Derek shushes her gently, shifting in order to stroke a hand through her hair, but Cam’s already moving: he reaches across Derek’s lap, hand clasping tight against his sister’s.

He lays his head on his father’s chest and smiles weakly at Evie, it makes anger boil down Derek’s nerve endings because his children should be at home now, they should be watching television, fruitlessly trying to haggle for a little longer until bedtime, not _this_. They shouldn’t be holed up in an unknown room that’s cold and dank and gets creepier by the second.  

Derek has only a limited amount of ways to protect them like this, he’s vulnerable and he knows it. He has no idea what they injected him with, or whether it has any lasting and debilitating effects, and he’d rather not find out in the middle of a fight, should there be one.

But Derek can’t _hear_ anything; his hearing range is confined to this room, stopped as if it’s encountered a barrier. It’s disconcerting to say the least, though he tries to keep his stress to himself, keeping his expression stoic and his heartbeat calm, especially with his children so close.

They’ve been sitting there for a handful of hours at the very least when the door clangs open. It’s a slow, painful process. The metal grinding on metal loud and jarring to the sensitive ears inside, sound seems to rush at them all at once. It’s not much, just heartbeats and footsteps and hushed conversations, but it’s enough to make Derek feel sick with the rush. Cam and Evie press closer towards him.

There’s a figure in the threshold, a woman, with dark brown eyes and jet-black hair pulled up in a thick ponytail that cascades down her back. She has two water bottles in her hands, two plated sandwiches balanced on top of that and a mean smirk on her face. There are two other people behind her, both holding on to rifles and staring passively at the inside of the cell.

The woman sighs before she steps in, pressing her lips together as she bends down to places everything down just within the mountain ash line.

“I wouldn’t try anything if I was you,” she comments mildly. She’s not even looking up as she speaks; more preoccupied is she with arranging the items she brought into a succinct linear line. “I’ll bet my boys could put a bullet in your little monster’s heads before you get a chance to say _boo_.”

She smiles up at him then, winking as if inviting him in on a joke, and it’s strange because it’s not inherently malicious. There’s nothing cruel about the ease in her shoulders or the spark in her eyes; but it sends a chill down Derek’s spine nonetheless, because she's _delusional,_ Derek realises. She's absolutely and entirely delusional, completely convinced by the rightfulness of whichever agenda she’s buying into.

Derek exhales deeply; loathing burning in his eyes as he glares at her, and pulls his children a little closer.

He’s almost glad when the door shuts back behind her, if not only because she’s putting distance between her and them. Derek can feel Cameron _shaking_ against him, no matter the amount of comforting words he murmurs in his ear.

Once Derek is sure they have been truly left alone, he endeavours to move, his joints are stiff and achy from sitting in one place for much too long but he prevails, moving forward to crouch in front of the plate and the two glasses of water.

The two sandwiches are simple, just ham and cheese, they didn’t even bother to cut it in half. Derek takes a small bite out of each sandwich, and then he breaks the seal on the water bottles, taking a gulp of each.

Other than that, Derek leaves the huntress’ offerings just as they were, and heads back to his children. He rearranges them beneath his overcoat; Evie directs a long look towards the food before she looks at her father.

She’s stopped crying by now, shuffling into Derek’s side quietly.

“Not good?” she asks tentatively, gesturing towards the food; she’s putting on a brave face but Derek can tell how terrified she is.

“It’s not quite ready just yet,” Derek tells her. “We’ve got to wait a little bit more.”

The look she throws him suggests that she’s not entirely convinced and Cam, on Derek’s other side, is most definitely not. But they don’t question him, and it’s just as well, because Derek is not at all sure how to even _begin_ to explain that he now has to check whatever they consume for poison.

Derek waits a half hour, and then, mildly satisfied that he hasn’t already fallen to an excruciatingly painful death, he tells his children to eat.

-

Evie finally falls asleep about an hour later, resting her head on Derek’s chest to listen to his heartbeat. The room they’re in is nearing pitch-black, if not for the meagre starlight that filters into through the window. The room’s sparseness, as well as the glassless window up above makes for a very cold experience, so Derek huddles Cam and Evie in closer.

The hours don’t seem to shift, slow and unsteady, they trundle in one after the other and Derek feels exhausted, despite not moving for hours now. Surely, he thinks, Stiles will have noticed that they’re missing by now. But even so, Derek has no idea where they’ve, what these hunters want or who they even are, so he doubts that Stiles will have any such clue.

Cameron shifts next to Derek, startling him out of his thoughts; he’d thought he’d fallen asleep.

Cam shifts some more, clearly gearing up to speak.

“Dad?” he asks quietly, sounding younger than Derek has heard him sound in years.

“Yeah?”

Cam pauses, burrowing further into Derek’s side, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip.

“We’ll get out of here, right?”

Derek’s heart feels like it’s falling through into his stomach, and he has to take a moment to just close his eyes tight, breathe out long and slow, bury his nose into Cam’s hair.

“Of course,” Derek says, an instant too late, words squeezing past the lump in his throat. He presses a firm kiss to Cam’s temple, reiterating, “Of course. We’ll get out of here, your Pa is probably going out of his mind trying to find us by now.”

Cameron considers this for a long time, hand reaching out to grasp Derek’s ring finger. It’s only when Cam’s fingers rub at the skin beneath Derek’s knuckle that he realises his wedding ring has gone missing, likely taken by their captors, but Cam finds comfort in it anyway.

“And he’ll get here in time?” he asks Derek.

Derek meets his son’s eyes in the dimness of the room. Cam’s not stupid, there’s a stagnant, resigned tone in Cam’s gaze, which makes Derek feel like he’s failed in his most important job as a father – to keep his family safe from all of this, of the menace of the hunters that have trapped them.

“Yeah,” Derek answers Cam, rubbing a broad hand over his son’s back. “Pa will move through hell and high water to get to us, you know that.”

There’s a beat. Silence. A sigh.

“I don’t want Papa to get hurt,” Cam confesses quietly. “I don’t want you getting hurt either, Dad.”

“Don’t worry about us, Cammie,” Derek says to him. “We’ll be just fine, and we’ll get you and your sister out of here as soon as we can, okay? I promise.”

-

Derek doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he loses a few hours, and by the time he’s waking up there’s a strong shaft of light beaming in through the window and fracturing on the dirty wall opposite.

The door jars open once again, startling the kids into wakefulness beside him. Derek stands, more prepared for the rush of noise now than he was the last time.

He’s distantly aware of Cam and Evie arranging them behind him, one child standing behind each of his legs, terror wafting from them in waves.

The same woman from the night before appears, holding two plates and two new water bottles. Like yesterday, two other hunters flank her.

This time, however, the one standing just behind her left shoulder is holding a tranquilliser rather than a gun and it’s pointed right at Derek.

Derek growls, the sound emanating low in his throat, and the woman easily sidesteps the gun of her compatriot; the man fires without hesitation, leaving Derek with barely enough time to push Cam and Evie further back before he’s falling to the ground.

-

When Derek awakens this time, strangers surround him; he’s stripped to his boxers, feeling cold, vulnerable and humiliated.

They all hold an air of open hostility, wielding high end, glossed black guns and outfitted with holsters with extra magazine clips.

He’s in a wide open space, the central area of a warehouse or an office, it doesn’t look like it’s been abandoned, but Derek can only see hunting militia occupying the space. There are a lot of them, more than Derek has ever seen in one single sitting – and they’re all staring at him.

There’s a man standing towards the back, he’s older, with a neat army cut and a clean-shaven jawline beneath sharp blue eyes. Derek’s never seen this man, or any his people, before, but the hunter seems to look at Derek as if he knows exactly who he is.

Derek has his wrists crossed over one another and lifted to a heavy metal hook that’s been tethered to steel panels on the ceiling. The main hunter smirks, tipping his chin towards one of his men in a silent order, and the hook is being pulled up, until Derek’s hanging by his wrists, the balls of his feet just barely touching the ground.

He roars, sending vibrations rattling through the air around him, shifting without even fully meaning to, eyes flashing acerbic blue and fangs pushing through his gums – a transition so swift, so _urgent_ , that it’s almost painful.

The leading hunter huffs a tired laugh, turning to address one the hunters next to him.

“So the animal wakes,” he mutters, lip curling back as he regards Derek.

In turn, Derek regards him coolly, trying his best to remain threatening despite his obvious disadvantage.

The hunter walks forward, settling into a waiting stance some four metres away from Derek; he tips his head in thought.

“There’s going to be a beautiful full moon tomorrow night,” the hunter says, mouth stretching into a grin as he watches the blood drain from Derek’s face. “Don’t you think?”

The chain that curls over Derek’s wrists is tight and unforgiving, and Derek is sure that the metal has been treated to a wolfsbane solution because he can feel the chain links burning into his skin, but he thrashes wildly, roaring until his throat is sore, and his muscles are screaming, barely able to think beyond what these hunters want with his children.

The hunter merely raises an eyebrow, face hardening in distaste; he turns to a female hunter standing closer to Derek, pronouncing his words hard and loud in an effort to be heard over Derek’s protestations.

“Estelle? Quieten him down,” the hunter says to the woman. “Make him regret ever opening his mouth.”

The huntress nods decisively, barely wincing at the volume of Derek’s roar the closer she gets. Her brown hair is tied in a thick braid down her back and she’s holding a whip, long and whippet-thin; She handles it easily, her wrist moving fluidly.

She cracks it forward, the leather biting across Derek's bared skin and it’s funny but he doesn’t feel the pain of it at first, like there’s a second’s delay. The pain, when it comes, rushed and fierce, shocks him into a lone, drawn out howl, and it feels like lava scorching through his veins.

The huntress smiles, dropping back on her feet to ready herself for another blow.

They knock him out again once they’re finished with him, but with a weaker dose of whatever it is they’re injecting him with. It doesn’t knock him out. It makes him feel drowsy and uncoordinated, the movement of anything and everything jostling with the acid in his stomach.

Derek falls straight to the floor, barely able to move even though he feels a vaporous type of energy shift through his body when the hunters close the line of mountain ash.

Evie and Cam rush over to him as soon as the hunters close the door, and Derek sighs, leaning into the small hands that touch him everywhere, to the small bodies of heat that insinuate along his side.

He drags himself to a half sitting position, it takes a while, laden down with bruises and lacerations over his body as he is, he’s healing but it’s taking its toll. The simpler bruises have all but gone, the punches he took to the stomach, to the face, to his thighs and his chests; the sharp sting of the metal bindings is still on his skin, around his wrists and his ankles, his upper arms.

The worst of it, however, criss-crosses over his skin, red and viciously angry. They’re from when Estelle had gotten bored of the leather whip she’d been using on Derek and had swapped it for a sturdier, metal one that bit into his skin and left raw gashes across his body.

Derek’s clothes had been tossed in after him, so he drags it over himself, trying to hide the blood staining over him. He might not have many more open wounds left, but his children don’t need to see the carnage they left behind.

Cam’s green eyes are wide and wet, he’s on the verge of tears, hand wrapping around Derek’s wrist, veins turning a murky blue-grey, focusing the way he’s seen Derek do it countless times before, to him, to Evie, to Stiles.

It takes Derek a second to realise what Cam is trying to do, but then he rips his arm away from his son’s grip before the kid can properly absorb the pain.

“No,” Derek says to him. “No, _don't_. Cam, it’s okay. You don’t need to do that. I’m okay.”

Cam screws his face into an expression of vicious determination, hand already creeping towards Derek’s wrist again and looking so much like Stiles that it blooms love in Derek’s heart anew.

“I want to help,” he insists, fingers tightening around his father’s wrist. “Dad, let me _help_.”

Derek shifts, easily taking his arm from Cam’s hold and wrapping it around his son’s shoulders instead, pulling him in close.

“You’re already helping,” Derek assures him. “Just like this. Just being close to me like this, you’re making it a whole lot better.”

Derek settles a broad hand on Evie’s hair, the other rubbing mindless circles over Cam’s back, tries to ignore the stench of blood permeating the air and he breathes, deep and slow.

"You don't need to do anything else," Derek sighs. "Nothing else."

He catches sight of the plate of food the hunters had brought in for the kids, the sandwiches untouched, the bottles unopened.

“You didn’t eat?” he asks.

He’s looking at Cam, but it’s Evie who answers.

“You weren’t here to say it was ready yet,” she says, gripping Derek’s shirt between her fingers, eyes on her father’s face, frown placed firmly between her brows.

Derek laughs, quiet but solid, it pushes through the pain of his slow healing. He drops a hard kiss on top of her head, “That’s my girl.”

-

The next day passes in much the same fashion, of coldness and an almost suffocating silence in the darkness of the room. Derek figures that there must be some kind of magic in place that keeps this room soundproof, but it’s not anywhere near natural that he can’t hear anything beyond these walls.

It settles something cold and imposing over his skin, it’s messing up with his perspective, makes him feel unmoored, like he’s been lost sea.

They come for him, once again, just as the sun is cresting high in the sky. He makes Cam and Evie sit together in the corner, as far away from the hunter’s prying eyes as he can possibly make them. Derek’s weak and hungry, having not eaten for the past two days, he’s disorientated and nervous but he stands his ground nevertheless, shoulders back and spine straight; pausing only to check whether they brought in food for the children.

The hours, too many hours blending into each other, pass in a riot of pain and exhaustion. Derek’s healing is very much slowed down, and he’s hanging on to consciousness by a tether.

The huntress, Estelle, finds no greater pleasure than in stabbing the needle into Derek’s skin, moving back a handful of steps in order to watch him lay more and more of his weight on the chains holding him up.

Derek wakes when it’s already dark, with a mouth drier than he’d ever like it to be and a fervent wish that Stiles would hurry the fuck up already and rescue them. He’s lying on his side, but there’s a ball of warmth wedged in close, it’s Evie he realises, with her arms folded up on the curve of Derek’s shoulder and her head pillowed on top of that.

She’s crying, Derek thinks, little body shaking through tremors and sniffles. So he licks his lips, croaking out a tired, “Hey, hey. I’m here.”

“Daddy?” Evie asks, shifting so she can get a look at his face.

Derek nods, though it sends a crashing wave of nausea over him, “I’m here.”

Evie cradles his face in her hands, dropping kisses on his face, clutching tightly to him as she sobs.

Derek manages to sneak an arm around her, pulling her in close and tight. He presses his face to her stomach, breathing in deeply, because beneath all the dirt and the grime, she smells like home, she smells like his little Evie.

But there’s something not quite settled in the back of his mind. A type of sensation that suggests that things are not quite right in this already fucked up situation.

It hits him all at once, and he stops breathing. He hears two heartbeats, but _only_ two heartbeats.

Derek sits up abruptly, all thoughts of pain forgotten; he sweeps his eyes over the entirety of the cell, “ _Cam?_ ”

Derek’s voice rebounds off of the walls, but there’s no reply. Evie cries harder, but Derek hardly hears her over the pounding of blood in his ears. He turns back to his daughter, eyes wide and scared, “Where’s your brother? Eve? Where is he?”

Evie clings to Derek’s shirt, folding herself into his embrace, but he takes hold of her arms, pulling her back so he can see her face, “Evelyn, _where did he go_?”

“They took him,” she cries, sobbing desperately. “I dunno where he went, they _took_ him, daddy.”

Derek crushes her to him, shushing her as he kisses her temple, over and over, even though he feels hollow. His son, his _son_ , is in the hands of those hunters and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.

He and Evie don’t move from their tight embrace for a long time, her fingers digging tightly to his ratty dress shirt, her face tucked into his neck as he sways them from side to side, muttering gentle nothings as he tries to soothe her.

It’s eerie how Derek seems cut off from the world beyond these four walls, beyond the line of mountain ash surrounding him and his daughter, and he feels like he’s going half crazy with worry for Cameron.

The door, when it opens, startles Derek. He pulls Evie closer to him by sheer instinct until he realises how vulnerable they are curled up in the corner together. So he stands up, manoeuvres himself so that he’s blocking, protecting her.

He lets the wolf shift comes over him and everything seems sharpened: his teeth, his claws, all the way down to his seething anger. There’s a part of him that hopes desperately that it’s Cam on the other side of that door, that it’s the hunters bringing him back to Derek – but then he catches sight of the barrel of the gun.

The roar that Derek emits then is stronger than anything he’s ever made, it transcends loudness, buries itself in the foundations of the building, shaking it apart with vibrations that run strong and steady beneath his feet.

Derek can’t see his own face but he knows that he must look terrifying, he’s aware, on some distant level, of Evie’s startled yip behind him, but he’s glaring at the two hunters in front of him.

They’re both young, two boys not much older than Scott and Stiles were when Derek met them all those years ago. They look startled, but their guns are aiming at the floor rather than at Derek and they’re hovering just on the threshold, clearly hesitant to move forward despite the line of mountain ash separating them.

Derek knows he probably wouldn’t make it past the mountain ash, but he figures he’ll try in any case, he could not summon a greater power of will than the _need_ he has to save his son. He takes a step forward, growling wetly from behind the grit of his fangs, and the hunters stumble further back.

Derek’s about to let out another mind-numbing roar when the sound of skidding feet reaches his ears; there’s a corridor just behind the hunters which Derek hadn’t noticed before. It branches off to different corridors culminates in a dead end some ten metres beyond that.

But then, _then_ , Stiles is skidding around the corner, a gun strapped to his back, another in a thigh holster, another two hanging by a holster on either side of his ribs. His hair’s a mess, his eyes tired and ringed in blue, he looks more stressed than Derek has seen him in a long time, he looks _distraught_.

“Derek?” Stiles says, it’s quiet, almost disbelieving, but Derek can hear it clear as day even as far away as Stiles is. “ _Derek!_ ”

Stiles breaks out into a full run, traversing the length of the corridor in seconds, eyes never wavering from Derek’s face. The two hunters, Chris’ men, Derek belatedly realises, both move out of the way just as Stiles crashes his way into the cell. He doesn’t stop, not once, running until he has an armful of Derek. He clutches tightly to Derek’s shirt, fingers digging into the flesh of Derek’s shoulders.

The relief is overwhelming, swift and instantaneous; Derek wraps his arms around his husband’s back, burying his nose into the crook of Stiles’ neck, holding on tightly.

Stiles pulls back after a moment, pressing a firm kiss on Derek’s lips, careful of his fangs. Then Stiles is dropping to his knees in the corner, digging Evie out from beneath Derek’s overcoat.

“Evie,” Stiles sighs in relief. Repeating their daughter’s name over and again, pressing kisses over her face. She clings to Stiles with fierce tenacity, unwilling to let go of him for even just one second.

“It’s okay, baby,” Stiles tells her, kissing her hair, her forehead, her cheeks. “It’s okay.”

Stiles twists his body, arm already outstretched to pull Cam into an embrace. Derek sees as Stiles’ eyes frantically scan over the room, can hear the way his heart skips a beat, and then another, and another – just before it ricochets into a frenzy, irregular and jarringly fast. His eyes find Derek’s, and he looks _terrified_ , his exhalations are hard and loud.

“Derek,” Stiles asks, heart caught in his throat. “Where’s Cam?”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My biggest mistake with this fic was not naming it 'Raise Some Hale' - how fucking great of a pun would that be, amirite?

**Author's Note:**

> LOL what the fuck am I even doing with my life? I have 4 other fics on the go, I'm not even kidding. If it makes you feel better, I've nearly finished writing this one.  
> I'm not a quitter, and they will _all_ be finished (eventually).


End file.
